Perhaps @ncorbic would like to start with a comment.
I am not going to rehash my whole list but I will throw a few things out.
FreePBX is either an open source community driven project or it is a marketing tool that is simply a means to an end. I know what some of us want it to be and I know what the people who ācontrol the purseā want. The trick is finding balance.
Forgive mistakes here I am from MURICA so I may make mistakes in this explanation. In someways FreePBX and Asterisk should be seen as a commonwealth. Generally independent and self managing but you have someone like Josh as āthe governor generalā who carries the torch for the monarch (Sangoma). The community almost always has and can continue to self moderate. Trusted members moving stuff, marking solutions etc. I think it is silly to pay someone to do this as a primary role. I do want staff and employees here as part of the community as well, but is shouldnāt be just a ājob dutyā that is how you get current events. Trying to manage a group of people who see you as ānot like themā is going to amplify every mistake. I was a community manager for years and a key component of that is I was community first.
The community generally rejected the idea of a Code of Conduct and we did didnāt force one on them. Changes within an open source community should never be unilateral (whether the āoneā is an employee or Sangoma) Things should generally at least try and get feedback.
Sorry if your still with meā¦
- Please put up clear policies whether the old ones or whatever superseded them on versions. Release/Supported/EOL . These should go in the community FAQ probably. As much as I dislike atlassian the replacement chosen is awful.
- Please open up other policies for comment including sweeping changes to the forums. Keep in mind there is a āDiscourse wayā and the way that things have just been done.
- I have probably said too much already so we will just move onā¦
4 Likes
Hey @jcolp any insight into this post that disappeared? https://community.freepbx.org/t/sipstation-fax-issue-forked-by-mod
2 Likes
I canāt find it based on that link itself, Iāll add it to my list to see if I can find the post through other methods and bring it up for discussion with the others.
1 Like
I created a topic for it - https://community.freepbx.org/t/missing-thread-what-happened/
It was originally forked from a second thread, as outlined in the topic I created.
1 Like
In general, is it possible to de-fragment/un-split threads ?
1 Like
@adell4444 The links still donāt get me to the thread itself, Iāll have to do digging.
@dicko Yes. Entire threads can be moved elsewhere, or specific parts. This includes into existing existing topics.
1 Like
Letās dig into this as the rest of it is merely (IMHO) a u r in nation contest of personalities.
Some observations that may (or may not) be correct, please weigh in:
-
FreePBX like all FOSS projects, was born of need - the need for a GUI to make a complex command-line program more accessible to more people
-
Asterisk, like all FOSS projects, was born of need - the need to build PBXes that didnāt exceed the cost of a menu item at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
FreePBX is meaningless without Asterisk. Asterisk is meaningless without the need of orgs for an on-pemise PBX. An on-premise PBX is ā¦drumrollā¦meaningless without the need for an on-premise PBXes.
So do orgs still need on-premise PBXes?
It SEEMS to me that the need by most orgs (businesses, etc.) for on-premise PBXes has decreased while at the same time, the need of orgs that still need on-premise PBXes is for more complex on premise PBXes.
Iām basing this on the last 4-5 months of posts to the Asterisk mailing list. What seems to continue to be growing is questions for outright esoteric weirdness and oddities that people want to hammer Asterisk into doing. A popular one is trying to tie Googleās AI APIs into it to create a smart robot that can answer the phone, for example thereās also questions about predictive dialing and so on.
In other words - demand for Asterisk and thus FreePBX - is to make it be more specialized. And at the same time the basic stuff like āhow do I setup a PBXā or āwhat is a PBX and do I need itā seems to be asked less frequently.
So the FreePBX userbase MAY be shrinking while the users that remain are getting more demanding of specialized stuff.
We see the same thing happening in the PC Computer hardware sector. Every year fewer and fewer people are interested in ārolling their ownā PC while the remaining ones who want to do that - gamers mainly - are interested in more complex stuff (overclocking, watercooling, etc.)
I frankly think that this movement is bad for BOTH of the options you presented for these reasons:
A more specialized market of users means fewer people which means statistically fewer people making coding contributions to Asterisk and FreePBX which is the #1 way to harm any FOSS project is for contributions to it to die off
The more esoteric a feature is the less likely it will be written, the less likely it will be included in the ānon-commercial, freeā portion of the marketing tool - thus the less usefulness the free marketing tool has of demonstrating Asterisk and making a sale and the less interest Sangoma has of maintaining it.
Iām not sure balance has anything to do with fixing this.
For the FreePBX community that wants to keep FreePBX going, itās biggest threat is too many orgs switching to the cloud thus having no need of an on-premise PBX. That lowers the community membership and reduces code contributions to FreePBX.
Asterisk is telephony toolkit. It can do other things besides just being a PBX. Additionally, neither FreePBX or Asterisk need to be on-premises. A company/entity needing a PBX solution does not automatically equate they need it on-premises nor does it equate they need to deploy their own system to have a PBX solution (ie. UCaaS).
Basing the entire logic around only on-premises deployments is flawed.
5 Likes
THIS 100%. All of our clients PBXās are running on cloud servers, not on premise.
2 Likes
While I provisionally agree with this, I also think the devil is in the details in the statement. For example, there has been plenty in the way of unnecessary alienation of the user base by the vendor of late. Speaking for myself:
- Code quality has degraded to the point that Iām afraid to update systems.
- Support, as Iāve detailed, is flat ineffective
- Vendor response to privately voicing concerns about the two items above is platitudes and inaction
- Vendor response to public voicing of those concerns is usually blame, castigation, obfuscation, and forum-banning
I, and plenty of others, would prefer to run on-prem systems. Ultimately, I think there will be a general swing back toward this as people realize that handing off their data and systems to giant companies compelled by boards, institutional shareholder, and crazed large investors to monetize customer systems and data to every degree possible, is not conducive to conducting a successful business. I think those big companies see that coming, too, as they are slowly but consistently making it harder to take your data off their platforms and leave. The cost to run on-prem Exchange is going to triple this Fall, for example.
3 Likes
My business is 99% cloud hosted PBXes. Iām not sure why you would equate FreePBX to just on premise. Whether youāre using FreePBX, 3CX, any other PBX, if there is a possibility to run it onprem, there is the same chance to be on the cloud.
Also, while quality of the code has been degraded, I think some support at Sangoma is at least trying to do whatās right. I had a great experience with Sergio, where he helped me two nights in a row. With that being said, I still would rather the Community be in the hands of folks like Tony, so I would jump on the forking bandwagon.
3 Likes
A reminder, I started this topic in good faith to handle āas yet unresolved concernsā and getting them ācleared upā, hopefully with the direct participation of any Sangoma hats.
I am tempted to flag posts that seem āoff-topicā but I wonāt because I still thank that is a āSillyā abuse .
Maybe we need a āSpeakerās Cornerā where we can take our particular soapbox to.
2 Likes
If a new topic is created I can move things over, flagging can be used to indicate which ones you think should be moved.
Or were you referring to a new category?
I suggest a new category , tl;dr diatribes are exactly what āSpeakerās Cornersā around the world are for, historically some have got traction.
2 Likes
Request completed: Speakers' Corner - FreePBX Community Forums
6 Likes
@ncorbic Itās been over two weeks since we started this new thread and asked some very basic questions. Weāre still waiting for the answers or some engagement we were promised.
Why is it that every time a representative from Sangoma asks the community for something that they say they will follow through on Sangomaās side is where all movement stops? Can we get some follow up on this?
3 Likes
Iāve tagged him and others internally too.
2 Likes
Happy cake day @BlazeStudios
4 Likes